NHTSA: A Brief History and Overview
Established by the Highway Safety Act of 1970, NHTSA has spent four decades collecting and reporting the data that reduces motor-vehicle deaths, injuries, and losses.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), under the U.S. Department of Transportation, was established by the Highway Safety Act of 1970.
In 1972, the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act expanded NHTSA's scope to include consumer information programs.
For more than four decades, NHTSA's mission has been to serve as a data collection and reporting mechanism responsible for reducing deaths, injuries, and economic losses from motor-vehicle crashes, by setting and enforcing safety performance standards for vehicles and equipment, and through grants that help state and local governments run effective highway safety programs.
One of NHTSA's chief functions is to collect reports of complaints issued against automotive manufacturers. The complaints NHTSA receives fall into four primary categories:
- Vehicles
- Child restraints
- Automotive equipment
- Tires
NHTSA investigates safety defects, sets and enforces fuel economy standards, helps communities reduce the threat of drunk drivers, promotes seat belts, child safety seats, and air bags, investigates odometer fraud, enforces vehicle anti-theft regulations, and provides consumer information on motor-vehicle safety.
NHTSA also conducts research on driver behavior and traffic safety to find the most efficient and effective means of improving safety.
How are NHTSA complaints filed?
NHTSA allows consumers and the public to report complaints in several ways:
- Vehicle Safety Hotline: toll free at 1-888-327-4236 or 1-800-424-9393 from anywhere in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands
- Online at safercar.gov, via ‘File a Complaint' in the Defects and Recalls section
- U.S. Mail to: U.S. Department of Transportation, NHTSA, Office of Defects Investigation (NVS-210), West Building, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE
What does NHTSA do with the complaints?
The information is saved in NHTSA's automated consumer complaint database and catalogued by vehicle make, model year, manufacturer, and the affected part, assembly, or system. Complaints can be tracked at nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/problems, which is updated weekly.
A major NHTSA function is oversight: conducting investigations and recommending recalls for issues found. NHTSA reviews everything it collects, including complaints, emails, anonymous reports, manufacturer letters, and service bulletins, to identify potential issues and possibly open an investigation.
What can manufacturers do with this information?
By quickly, easily, and flexibly accessing complaints data in real time, manufacturers can analyze trends, identify potential causation and correlation, monitor issues over time, and make informed decisions. Datrato culls and processes this data daily, giving users infinitely expandable, manipulatable data sets in minutes, not the days it might take large teams to sift through complaint reports.